Thursday, March 20, 2014

I found this essay called Why I am no longer a skeptic,
by Stephen Bond, and I was immediately sympathetic. I think that one can agree with the
values of skepticism, and feel disconnected from the skeptical
identity, the community, and the institutions. The essay seemed to
express this view, at first.

Then it turned out that
the whole thing was a bunch of mischaracterizations and unsupported
assertions. The essay successfully explains what it purports to
explain--why the author is no longer a skeptic. It does not make a
persuasive case that anyone should follow the author.

Are skeptics elitists?

Stephen Bond talks about how skeptics like to make fun:

I'm not going to plead
innocence here: I've often joined in with the laughter, at least
vicariously; laughing at idiots can be fun. But in the context of skeptic
sites, the laughter takes on a bullying and unhealthy tone.

I
appreciate that the author honestly has this impression, but when I
compare it to my own impressions, it seems off-base. Your impression
against mine, not a good argument, eh? People like to make fun, and can
be bullies about it, but skeptical institutions do their best to
discourage it. On the Skeptic Society's about page, there's a quote by Spinoza, something to do with understanding human actions rather than ridiculing them.

Compare to say, social justice "call out culture" which also leads to bullying.
People have brought up the issue, but I don't see people discouraging
it to the same extent bullying is discouraged in the skeptical
community.

If anything, I'm convinced that most [skeptics] would prefer to keep the
resources unequal. The average skeptic has little time for spreading the
word of reason to the educationally or intellectually lacking.

Like the entirety of the skeptical movement is dedicated towards educating people and disseminating information.

About ten years ago there was a short-lived movement to rebrand
skeptics as "brights". This proposal was widely derided within the
community, perhaps because it revealed too much about the skeptic
mindset.

That was more the atheist community, not the
skeptical community, but whatever. If "bright" had been a popular term,
it would have confirmed Stephen's belief that skeptics are elitist.
Since "bright" was not a popular term, it still confirms Stephen's
belief? One wonders why Stephen even bothers with evidential arguments.

Are skeptics sexist?

Women are present on skeptic forums in much the same way that women are
present in early Star Trek episodes: while the men can take on a variety
of roles, the women are always sex characters. Their every attribute is
sexualised and objectified. Intelligence in a male skeptic is taken for
granted; intelligence in a female skeptic is a turn-on.

Actually I largely agree with this section.Are skeptics Islamophobic?

I think Stephen Bond
might be conflating the skeptical community and atheist community,
especially since their primary example is Richard Dawkins' infamous "Dear Muslima"
comment. Not really the best example, since that comment caused large
swaths of the atheist community to become disillusioned with Dawkins.

[Dawkins] builds us a generalised picture from a number of isolated
and unrelated instances. Female genital mutilation, for example, is
nothing to do with Islam, as Dawkins probably knows, though he's quite
happy to throw it in there and suggest it's endemic. The effect of his
screed is to portray Islam as a kind of institutionalised woman-torture
in which all Muslim men are complicit, thus slandering about half a
billion people

You know, I can accept that Dawkins
was a tremendous ass, and that the atheist community can be
Islamophobic, and that Dawkins in particular is Islamophobic.
But I don't agree that this is an instance of Dawkins being
Islamophobic. I mean, Dawkins does not really say or imply that female
genital mutilation (FGM) is endemic among Muslims.

And
while it's bad to slander half a billion people, this argument largely
seems like an attempt to shut up criticism. When Bond stated that
skeptics are sexist, you didn't see me complaining that the they were
slandering skeptics, who are not all sexist. Sexism is a problem among skeptics, it needs to be said, alright?

Are skeptics neoliberals?

Allow me to summarize the argument in this section.

Metaphors are necessary for political, social, and economic advance.

"Skeptics, in insisting on the primacy of scientific knowledge, deny
the value of non-scientific metaphors in future scientific advance."

Skeptics, therefore, must believe that "western liberal democracies have made all the
political, social, cultural and economic advances they need to."

Aside
from the unfounded claim that skeptics reject metaphors and therefore
political progress, what I'm hearing is that Stephen Bond can't stand
any community that has capitalists in it. Fair enough, he has his
political differences, but it hardly seems like an indictment of the
skeptical community specifically.

Is science affected by politics?

The idea that politics could or should have any input into
science is anathema to skeptics.

Says who? No
citations are provided. It seems clear to me that science is affected by
politics, so I don't know what they're disagreeing with. But perhaps
we don't agree on the extent of it. The author thinks skeptics should
avoid "cheerleading
indiscriminately for all science, any science." In particular, the
author criticizes medical science, evolutionary psychology, linguistics,
and economics.

Actually I don't see skeptics really
cheerleading for these fields. Linguistics and economics simply aren't
discussed much. The medical establishment is frequently
criticized--it basically has to be criticized in any discussion of
alt-med, because we seek to understand the motivations of alt-med
users. Evolutionary Psychology is also a frequent target of criticism
(in my experience, even in offline groups). And at the same time we
also express the value of those fields. Overall I'd say we get a much
more balanced view than that of Stephen Bond.

Are fortune tellers bad?

Here
the author argues that fortune tellers are just used as entertainment,
that the clients of big name psychics know that they're being lied to,
and the placebo effect helps people. I note that the Stephen Bond himself
sincerely believed in superstitious things before identifying as a
skeptic, so the argument apparently does not apply to him. Also psychics have done lots of demonstrable harm, so Bond largely comes across as an insensitive jerk.

Earlier he was accusing skeptics of wanting to keep resources unequal, but now I just think this is true of Bond.

Also,

Their crimes pale next to those of our
financial institutions, and all the others who convince the public to
throw their life savings at the stock market, take out mortgages they
can't afford, buy junk they don't need with money they don't have, and
pay for the fuck-ups of bankers and the greed of speculators.

Come
to think of it, why do we ever discuss problems that aren't
capitalism? Like sexism, why did the author bring that one up? Wait,
no, I suppose sexism is capitalism (but psychics are not). Nevermind then.

Is skepticism just about comforting people?

Here Stephen argues that people believe in nonsense because it is comforting to them. The same is true of skepticism.

But as much as hocus-pocus is a comforter for the disenfranchised,
skepticism is a comforter for nerds. Even the privileged need to be
reassured in their ways; no one is too old or too grand to be tucked in
at night with a conscience soother.

This is not much
of an argument, because anyone can accuse their opponent of only
believing what they do because it is comforting.

And as long as it does no harm to them and others, I
wouldn't want to disabuse anyone of their faith, or deprive them of their
warming blanket.

Okay, now I'm really convinced that
Bond has no interest in spreading the value of reason, and instead
"prefers to keep resources unequal".

Is skepticism positivism?

...skeptics have no time for philosophy; many skeptics hate and fear
it. It's the skeptic Kryptonite. As a fundamental, rigorous,
intellectually respectable but defiantly non-scientific discipline,
philosophy makes a lot of skeptics feel threatened.

There's
basically no way that Stephen Bond's essay stands up to philosophical
scrutiny, but maybe philosophical scrutiny isn't really the correct
standard to use. I use a lower and more casual standard, which Bond still fails.

Next, Stephen identifies skepticism with the discredited philosophy of positivism. Based on what I know of positivism, it is unlike modern skepticism in very relevant ways. Any philosophy people want to comment?

Is skepticism ugly?

The truth is, I became a skeptic for
aesthetic reasons, and the truth is, its aesthetics now repel me. I
increasingly find the core skeptical output monotonous and repetitive:
there are only so many times you can debunk the same old junk, and I've
had it up to here with science fanboyism.

I did not
personally come to skepticism for its aesthetics. Indeed, I don't
really care for Saganesque "awe and wonder at the universe" aesthetics,
and resent that people expect me to have these aesthetics just because I
study physics.

I think aesthetics are largely irrelevant,
although it may decrease or enhance your personal enjoyment of a
community. If you don't like the aesthetics of skepticism, that is a
perfectly good reason to focus on something else you find more
enjoyable, although it doesn't really say anything about skepticism.

Conclusion

While
Stephen Bond's criticisms seem completely off the mark in most cases, I
now seriously suspect they are in fact applicable to whatever skeptical
forum that he used to frequent. I don't know which forum it is, and
the only representative I know of is Stephen himself.

And indeed
Bond is very guilty of many of the same things he criticizes. He seeks
to mock rather than to understand. He seems to have picked up bad
arguments such as, "You just believe that to comfort yourself," and "Why
talk about that when there are bigger problems?" He doesn't believe in
"spreading the word of reason", and would "prefer to keep the
resources unequal". And he clearly knows very little about philosophy.

"Why
I am no longer a skeptic" is a serious indictment of skepticism, not
because Stephen points out many things wrong with skepticism, but
because he himself exhibits so many bad beliefs and terrible arguments.
I don't have a problem with people departing from the skeptical
community, but I sure hope they leave in a better state than this.

3 comments:

After clicking through the links to read this author's critique of positivism, the essence seems to be that positivism is bad because it is (supposedly) some sort of elaborate attempt to rationalize capitalism. It's filled with bizarre arguments by association, such as that Popper's work is bad because it was published in 1934 but did not gain popularity until 1945, supposedly because it was popularized by Hayek, a conservative economist.

The critique of linguistics also seems to be way off. The author appears to be pushing for some version of critical theory semiotics, but claims that syntax and semantics have been dead ends but semiotics has not are not sustainable. If the author means something completely different, it's left utterly unspecified. It's actually a bit like Marxist utopianism--observe the very significant problems with the existing system, and purpose overthrowing it without providing any details about what would replace it.

In my understanding, positivism really is a discredited theory in philosophy, so I assumed that all Stephen Bond needed to do was read up on, and summarize the standard critiques. It surprises me to hear that he completely bungled that one.

I don't know enough about linguistics or economics to fully evaluate Bond's critique of these fields, but I can easily see that his "argument" is really composed of vehement assertions.

Yeah, it surprised me that his critique of positivism was a political criticism rather than just a reiteration of the standard criticisms you'd find in a philosophy department. I think the function is to preempt people who are sympathetic to the positivist attitude from generating a modified positivist-ish theory that evades the standard criticisms. (Philosophy being the contrarian discipline it is, there are no doubt plenty of philosophers who have tried to do this.)